So, not yet, then?

Yesterday I posted a foolishly optimistic piece that ended with the hope that today’s rolling restarts would include the mythical “On” switch for flying in Draenor. Silly me. Honestly, I knew when I wrote it that the odds were about a million to one against, but I wrote it anyway. I think I just wanted — for a day, anyway — to believe that Blizz was still capable of a classy move. Like I said, silly me.

Blizz announced today’s rolling restarts almost a week ago, something I don’t think they have ever done before. I mean, why announce a minimal 15-minutes maintenance so far in advance? I chose to interpret the move as optimistic, as a sign that they had some big surprise in store for us, that we would be expecting just a normal server restart but when it was over, Voilà!, we would have flying enabled. It would have been vastly fun and exciting, it would have delighted many, many players.

I don’t think I can say this too often: Silly me. As it turns out, they probably announced the maintenance so far in advance for the opposite reason: to keep us from getting our hopes up, to let us know that today would positively NOT be the day flying gets unlocked.

So I am disappointed. Not a big deal, not like it is the first time lately that Blizz has missed an opportunity to be a class act. But of course it makes me — and many like me — wonder exactly when Blizz plans to make good on its flying promise. Next week? Week after next? Six weeks from now? Their recent track record makes me suspicious, they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy — whether from nefariousness or ineptitude makes no difference.

I don’t think it is possible to stretch out the delay until just before the next expansion, mainly because I think we are a year out from that and even Blizz can’t delay a promised move that long. But I do think they are in no rush to push it out, because it will in fact trivialize much of Patch 6.2, causing some to be bored with it sooner than if they had to pound along the ground endlessly with alt after alt, gathering mats or grinding rep or whatever.

One of the devs — can’t remember now which one — recently said in a blue post that flying would be implemented in “weeks, not months.” It was meant to be a reassuring statement, but technically it could mean we are as much as 7 weeks away from flying.

Of course, we all knew this would happen. We all knew that as soon as some people got their Pathfinder achievement that there would start to be a lot of collective angry hands-on-hips foot tapping. One would think — but of course one would be wrong — that Blizz might have anticipated this and have a plan for it. A plan such as putting enough resources into the “tidying up” for flying to be able to implement it right about now. Or a plan such as sending a couple devs into public to announce a solid “not later than” date for it.

After all, everyone from Hazzikostas on down, since the first announcement of WoD, has said that this expansion was designed for flying, they just weren’t sure when — or if as it turns out — it would be implemented. So if that is true, why should it take more than a couple of weeks to tidy it up for implementation?

My tinfoil hat theory is that they weren’t EXACTLY lying to us when they said it was designed for flying. But they all conveniently neglected to say that it was designed for commercial flying and feather and glider “flying”, not for the kind of personal flying they knew everyone meant when they asked about it. So yes, it was designed for flying, but not for the kind of flying we all think of. Which means there is in fact probably a huge amount of work that needs to be done in order for Blizz to carry out its promise.

Which means we won’t have it next week, or probably not the week after that, either. My prediction is — and I will happily eat crow if I am wrong — we won’t see flying in Draenor before mid-August.

Silly me for thinking Blizz was still capable of bringing us delight and surprise.

5 Responses to So, not yet, then?

>>everyone from Hazzikostas on down, since the first announcement of WoD, has said that this expansion was designed for flying<<

I believe it. The "free" raven mount provided as an incentive to pre-order WoD can fly everywhere else, and looks stupid as a ground mount. I think they did intend it. Then they had well-publicized second thoughts.

My personal opinion is that Blizz are looking at how many people are striving for and achieving Pathfinder status. Flying in WoD is an opt-in ability, so they could see that as a kind of vote. If my guild is anything to go by then they'll be left in no doubt. Okay the figures will be skewed by the achievement hunters who'll go for it even if they prefer no flying, and those who feel they have to have it or they'll miss out: but the rate folks are getting the achievement should tell Blizz something, it's not trivial to get.

Most of us in our guild are still grinding away at rep, and T2 hasn't lost it's appeal yet. Groups are getting harder to form now though, because as soon as people get Pathfinder they only go to T2 to farm Felbloods. (My best source of FB's is doing Kazzak with my five lvl 100s, I don't have time to farm for them yet).

Until flying as been on the PTR for a while I don't expect to see it in game. And I still suspect they'll change stuff like treasure locations when they do it.

The groups being hard to form is my fear. I’ve been busy/lazy on getting my Pathfinder rep done and I know that while I can solo one or two Saberons on my druid, it will take forever. to level my rep that way, so I should find groups now.

And I do feel a bit like I’m part of the problem because as soon as I get my Pathfinder rep, I highly doubt I’ll return to Tanaan.

Good point about the scarcity of groups, and I agree that T2 will pretty much become a Felblight farm as soon as flying kicks in. As I have written, my luck with it remains epically terrible, still averaging only about one per 50 mats gathered. So I hope flying will encourage lots of farming, so maybe prices on the AH — my main source of it ATM — will go down a lot.

It is already getting hard to find a Signals quest group on my server, and the number of Saber rep groups has gone down a lot. And no one seems to do group rare hunting any more. Like you, I feel as if I may have already waited too long to get my healer moving on T2. My plan was to get my main all the way through the Pathfinder achieve, then worry about gearing my alts as I had time, but in hindsight that may have been a tactical error, because without easy groups it will become much harder soon on undergeared alts.

As an aside, I think T2 is a continuation of the entire WoD alt-hostile environment.